This year, being more interested in cooking, I wanted to go all out. I know I don't need to make something super complex to impress her, but I wanted to do it for her and also myself. I ended up making a three course meal.
For the first course I made classic potato and pea samosas with mint chutney. Since I don't have a mixer and don't have a lot of room in my kitchen, I opted to use puff pastry dough instead of an authentic dough. I took the recipe from an Indian cookbook my girlfriend gave me for Christmas. The end result was very tasty, even with the jarred chutney. The recipe I used yielded a ton of extra filling, which I ate with my lunch today.
The main course was Chicken Cordon Bleu, green beans, and Mornay sauce. I used Gruyere for the filling and a 50/50 mix of Gruyere and Parmesan for the sauce. I decided to bake this (same with the samosas) because I didn't want to have a ton of oil to clean up in the morning and also didn't want the whole apartment to smell like a McDonald's. Plus I am not confident in my pan-frying ability. The end result was quite delicious, even though it was a little tough. I wish I had put the chicken under the broiler for a few minutes, however, as it didn't look as nice as I wanted.
For dessert, I made her her favorite dessert, Bananas Foster. I followed a very simple recipe by Paula Dean, even though I wanted to use Alton Brown's recipe. I also had to comprimise with light brown sugar and light rum (I'd rather go all out on the cheese in the cordon bleu than the rum). I served it over Haagen-Daas vanilla bean ice cream and it really reduced us to a mass on the couch with only enough energy to turn on some Arrested Development and digest.
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